VALLEY CENTER: Caregivers plead not guilty to abusing autistic man

Two in-home caregivers, who prosecutors said appeared to punch, eye-gouge and slap a severely autistic young man on video camera footage, pleaded not guilty Friday to abuse charges, but failed to convince a judge to lower their bail from $1 million.

Michael Dale Garritson, 61, and Matthew McDuffie, 27, were arrested earlier this week and have each so far been charged with six felony counts of willful cruelty to a dependent adult.

Prosecutors may file more charges against the pair, Deputy District Attorney Natalie Villaflor said after Friday's court hearing.

For about two years, Garritson and McDuffie had been caring for a 23-year-old Valley Center man whose autism is so severe he is unable to speak, his mother, Kim Oakley, said in an interview earlier this week.

Oakley said that her son couldn't tell her about the abuse with words, but she noticed subtle changes in his demeanor ---- he became more upset, less cheerful.

She said she installed a motion-activated video camera in his bedroom and left it on for nearly a month.

When she watched what was on the tapes, she said, she was horrified.

"(My son was being) treated like an animal," Oakley said. "Not even an animal. Just garbage."

Garritson, a registered nurse since 1983, was among the most qualified caregivers she had, which made her feel even more betrayed, she said.

"When you're thinking of an RN, you're thinking of a guy who's kind of compassionate," she said. "Not someone tossing (my son) over a wooden headboard and gouging his eyes."

High-profile past

Garritson has garnered notoriety in Southern California and across the nation.

He was the defendant in a high-profile infant-death case that resulted in two mistrials and eventual acquittal. He also was convicted of animal neglect after authorities seized more than 150 dogs from his Valley Center home, and he has been featured in major magazines and newspapers for his unorthodox way of raising his children.

Garritson and his wife, Linda, have 14 children. He trained his children from a young age to be elite, long-distance runners, starting them as young as 4 or 5 years old.

His strict and methods became a point of controversy in the youth running world. Many of his children broke records and outperformed older or more experienced athletes, but critics considered his training too extreme for children.

"Mike Garritson has turned his kids into winners, but they may be on the fast track to burnout," a 1988 People magazine headline reads.

Garritson has also been charged with at least three crimes before the latest abuse charges.

In the 1980s, he was tried twice, but never convicted, of a second-degree murder charge stemming from the 1979 death of a 13-month-old boy Garritson and his wife were baby-sitting.

In one of the two trials that ensued, an Orange County jury hung 11-1 in favor of conviction. In the other, problems with a jailhouse witness' testimony caused the judge to declare a mistrial. Prosecutors refiled charges, and Garritson was acquitted by a judge in 1986, according to a Los Angeles Times account.